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Nope, God is holy ... and wholly unimpressed with the righteousness of man.

I’m convinced that the knowledge of God that people refuse to hold onto that leads them into a Romans 1:18-32 state has a lot to do with 1) them thinking their stuff don’t stink and therefore 2) God’s holiness isn’t an issue ... ever.

That they literally do not talk into account or recall that He is Holy.

If you believe you are good, that people are good, you start looking around you for your righteousness rather than look up.

It’s as if people’s these days think that were they to suddenly find themselves in Isaiah’s shoes with God manifesting Himself before them they would feel like they should get a pat on the back for being just hoopy froods.

But Isaiah, who was not just a morally and ethically upright man but who had the benefit of all the official holiness that a ministering priest could gain, when he saw Him his reaction was to despair.

But God sent an angel to take a coal from the altar and purify his lips.

Speaking of lips, maybe we should think about what it means to be a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips to see how well all these really great guys (just ask them) hold up.

My personal opinion: Isaiah was a LOT closer to an amazingly together guy than any of these modern posers. But when confronted with the Holiness of God he realized that there were things in his life, common among his people even when they were among the best, that were far far from righteous. He, a ministering priest, was unclean in ways he’d never before even considered could be unclean.

And for what had seemed a minor issue to him before that, once he saw God, he despaired of life, not that he would die but that the SHOULD die, he realized that he deserved to die.

To be thrown into the presence of Holy, Holy, Holy God without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has to be an utterly traumatic experience. Even with the Holy Spirit it has to convict of sin and convince of Grace.

People think they are okay.

But this is an age overrun with dull, mealy mouthed, unfaithful and unmanly men ... that’s who thinks they are okay. But they are not JUST men of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips, no, but men of unclean “what have you got?!” (say it out loud as in great enthusiastic expectation to get the intended effect)

The men of Sodom might be scandalized by this generation, not because so many are very much worse than they were but because so many, professing themselves to be good, trample on the Grace of God and the opportunity to repent that the men of Sodom had no knowledge of.

The old hymn goes: just as I am, without one plea, but that your blood was shed for me, and that you bid me to come to thee, oh Lamb of God, I come!

But the version that too many these days would seem to believe goes instead: just as I am, I’m changing not, how dare you say my soul has got spots? I’m okay with me and that should be enough, oh Lamb of God I’ll come, but only just as I am.

The second version does not end well for the proverbial singer.